Untouched red wine
by The.Squint
Summary: Every night he pours this glass of red wine, pushes it across the table to where an empty chair lies; it’s almost as if he pours that wine glass for someone who is not there. One-shot. Set recently after S2 E8. Enjoy D


_Hello, back with another Ashes to Ashes Fic, I just can't get enough. This story just popped into my head one day while I was watching TV and I really hope you enjoy it. It is slightly different to my previous Fic's so feedback would be massively appreciated._

_I do not own Ashes to Ashes, unfortunately._

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I'm new around here. London that is. It's bigger than I imagined, well I guess anything would be big when you come from a small town in Sussex where the tallest building is the local church. However, as soon as I turned 18 I decided to leave my small home town, against my parent's wishes and explore the country a bit and where better to start than the Capital city?

Upon arriving I found myself a small flat and by small I mean _small_. My bedroom and front room are in the same space, I then have a very poor excuse for a kitchen; possibly three usable cabinets, a questionable oven and no fire alarm. Finally there is the bathroom that contains a toilet, sink and a bath that leaks. However, if this is what freedom is then who was I to judge?

I planned to stay for a couple of weeks but after a couple of days I knew than I need look no further in my journey across the UK as I was already in the greatest part. London was fantastic, all the hustle and bustle and the pubs that never closed. This was defiantly my kind of city.

Speaking of pubs, I stumbled across a pub called Luigi's a couple of nights ago and it's brilliant. The lights are dim, the booze is cheap and the people are nice. What more could you ask for? I recognise a few faces in there and I'm pretty sure they are part of the Metropolitan Police; there is one face I am sure I recognise because he drives the car of my dreams. A red Audi Quattro, I saw him driving it a few days ago, although he was driving like a manic and so I only saw the driver for a split second, but I am sure that it is him.

Going to Luigi's became part of my daily routine and after about a week or so I began to notice something odd about the man who drives the Quattro. At first I didn't pay any attention to it, but I soon became curious.

He doesn't sit with the rest of them. Well, I assume that they are his friends because they are constantly buying him his beers and whiskeys and I have heard them call him the 'Guv' on a couple of occasions so I think he is their boss. They all sit on one long table at the end of the restaurant; they laugh and joke while he just sits at a small round table in the corner alone. He doesn't seem to talk much. He doesn't seem to move much and I wouldn't be surprised if he was an alcoholic because that's all I've ever seen him do. That and drive the car.

However, that is not what has caught my attention. Every drink he gets, he drinks, no matter how many he has had previously and I'm no psychologist but I'm pretty certain that it's his coping mechanism for something, something he would rather forget about. Then why does he order a bottle of red every night, pour a glass to the very top, push it to the other side of the table and leave it there? That is what has really confused me. He just pours this glass for no reason and pushes it to the other side of the table, where an empty chair lies; it's almost as if he pours that wine glass for someone who is not there.

I have never once seen him drink it; I have even purposely made myself wait for him to leave the pub to see if he drank it then, which he didn't. Not even his colleagues, the ones on the long table have taken a sip. However, I am sure that I have seen a young woman that sits at the long table, cute looking with short brown hair look at this glass a few time and whenever she does her eyes fill with a very real, very heart-breaking kind of sadness.

But why? I don't understand the significance of this wine glass.

Every night is the same, they come in, the shout and laugh, they buy the 'Guv' his round of drinks and before he even touches his own he pours that special wine glass and leaves it there. They drink, they get drunk and they get louder while the Quattro man stays deadly quite and finally they stumble off home. Leaving the wine glass filled and untouched.

This carried on for about three weeks before I couldn't take it anymore and strode up to the pub owner himself, named Luigi and asked him the one question I couldn't get out of my mind: why does the Quattro man pour that glass of red and never drink it? His face that had until that point been wearing a warm smile dropped and tears glazed over his eyes showing the deepest sadness. He just shook his head and walked away leaving me with no answer, but with an ever stronger curiosity.

However, I was determined to get my answer and so as I sat at my seat at the bar, one hand holding my half-drunken beer and the other absentmindedly tapping on the wooden bar surface. I wondered how I would ever get my answer. Everyone that had once sat on the long table had gone home and yet there sat in his corner was the Quattro man and as always as was the untouched wine.

Perhaps I had had one too many and my confidence levels were higher than normal, but something seem to possess me and before I knew what was happening I had walked up to this Quattro man and sat in the seat that seemed reserved for that glass of red wine.

Before I had a chance to speak, the Quattro man's gravelly voice vibrated the air and his words slurred due to the intoxication of alcohol. "If yer know what's good for yer, Y'll get your ass outta that seat"

Panicked, I began to stutter and, of course, vacant the seat immediately. "Yes, yes, yes, ev..ever so.. s... sorry"

I knew that if I was ever going to get an answer it would not be from that man; in fact I think if I was ever to press the matter I would only get a very hard punch. Although after leaving the forbidden seat I didn't return to my stool at the bar I enter an empty chair very close to that of the Quattro man and I listened. After twenty minutes or so I heard the scraping of a chair and then that same gravelly voice once more "Night Bolly" stealing a glance I watched as the Quattro man lightly touched the rim of the glass before stumbling from the restaurant.

_Night Bolly?_ Who is Bolly, if in fact it is even a person. As confusion began to set in I knew that if I didn't get an answer soon my mind would explode or I would go insane, neither seemed appealing.

Again, I strode up to Luigi who was in the middle of cleaning a glass. I sighed and asked the question. "Luigi, who is Bolly? Why is the wine glass left every night? Please Luigi the curiosity is killing me"

Again that undeniable sadness removed his plastered smile. He sighed and placed the glass onto the bar and leaned in close. "_Okey. I tell you. That wine is for Messieurs D.I. Drake, she is with us no more_"

He started to walk away again, but I had one last question "Luigi, what happened to her?"

"_Goodnight Monsieur_"

Once I had entered my flat I concluded that what I had learned tonight was all I was ever going to learn. The untouched glass of red wine was for a Miss D.I. Drake who was no longer with them and even though I could never be sure I had this sudden knowledge that the Quattro man was her 'Guv' just like the others, only she didn't sit with them on the long table she sat with him on that small round one in the corner and drank red wine every night.

It all suddenly became so clear and so gut-wrenchingly sad, because for some reason I could suddenly see something I had been blind to in the past that this Quattro man had loved her and that glass of red wine was all he had left. The only thing he had to remind himself of her. It was his coping mechanism; that simple glass of untouched red wine.

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The End. I hope you enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed writing it =D Thanks for reading and if you would be so kind as to leave me a review I would be very grateful.


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